


Breaking Fraternization; A Hawk Smitten

by viperf0x



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viperf0x/pseuds/viperf0x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton: marksman, assassin, head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Delta Squadron, and hopelessly head over heels for a guy he's only just had a chance to meet properly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Fraternization; A Hawk Smitten

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of an RP group back story as to how Clint and Bruce could've possibly met, and how Clint subsequently handles his attraction to the good doctor.

Clint hadn’t really gotten a chance to meet Bruce until S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to keep him in their employ rather than let him go about the world and hide where he so pleased. And Clint certainly remembered those times, Bruce moving from country to country. He remembered because he’d been stuck doing a year-long detail keeping an eye on doctor Banner for Fury (with a less-than-gentle push from Coulson) because that was what he was good at. When Clint wasn’t running and gunning, or snaking through air vents, he was damn good at finding people who didn’t want to be found and keeping on them like glue. It was somewhere around the fifth month into the operation that he’d grown genuinely curious about the target, that didn’t involve Mr. Green and Angry, and that had given him the edge over the other agents of his field whenever Bruce did manage to get out from under his watch.

Because, really, S.H.I.E.L.D. were a little incompetent if they were going to just hone in on the whole Hulk thing to keep track of Bruce. Bruce Banner wasn’t leveling shanty towns left, right, and centre. Bruce Banner was using his skills in the field to get by. An appendectomy to cross the border, for a start, was an incredible bargaining tool. Clint had started to look for reports on a kindly, quiet doctor and always found him following that paper trail. Eight months in and it was hard to believe that Bruce harbored the Hulk inside of him. After twelve he was convinced that he actually rather liked a man he had, more or less, not even actually met.

His mission was going to continue, but the reins were handed over when New Mexico happened and Coulson needed him. And then there had been the near mind-numbingly boring job of playing keeper to Selvig and his crew while they worked on the tesseract.

Everything went to shit after that, but it got better. Sort of. They were Avengers now and the world used their talents every second week to fend off some pretty insane threats.

Sure the first few group meetings had been awkward as hell, all of the Avengers a storm of clashing personalities held up with strong opinions and bullheadedness because they were all leaders in their own right, but they’d settled into some sort of pecking order which made the rest of the meetings much easier. They even managed to assign themselves seats without ripping each other’s throats out now. Clint often sat at the furthest end of the conference table, as far away from the group as possible where he could stretch out and keep his feet off the ground planted on an unused chair. Bruce had sat by him one day, the rest of the team rather on edge from a mission that had happened in Colorado that neither Clint or Bruce had been a part of, and they’d quietly poked fun at the expense of the rest of their team as the others bickered to relieve their own stresses at being stuck in the room at that very moment.

It wasn’t too long after that that Clint openly made an effort to be considerate to Bruce, paying him visits in the lab and offering company when neither could sleep. For the most part the scientist was quiet and lost in his work, and Clint was honestly okay with that. The fact he was allowed to hang out with someone who didn’t look at him scared he was going to stab them in the back was a blessing he was not going to overlook. 

The best part was that no one really looked for Clint when he decided that the lab would be his new hiding place because most people avoided Bruce Banner.

Which was dumb, but most people also didn’t see  _Bruce_. All they saw was the Hulk, which was insulting, really, when Clint thought about it. Sometimes he really had to remind himself why he’d been the most successful at keeping tabs on Bruce what was, now, nearly a year ago. 

Bruce was a loner as much as Clint was, both of them outcasts and not exactly fitting in; Bruce for the whole irradiated green death monster thing, and Clint because he could kill a man with his thumb in about 3 seconds. Clint was still struggling to adapt back into things after the Chitauri - he’d not long ago been gunning down his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and that kind of thing left a stigma. Clint used to give his fellow employees a wide berth anyway, but he’d outright avoided most human contact in the base feeling incredibly guilty and not quite himself. Not even Natasha could find him on his worst days. He busied himself with missions and when he wasn’t on the field or in the range he kept winding up in Bruce’s lab where they'd spend hours together in comfortable companionship.

At the end of the day, the fact of the matter was that Bruce Banner was both an infuriatingly complex  _and_  infuriatingly attractive man. Clint was rather smitten. 

And that was the inherent problem. 

It took Clint about two months before he acknowledged that he had feelings extending beyond a platonic relationship, and once that seed was planted Clint was on a personal mission to see if there was even a glimmer of hope that his feelings would be reciprocated. 

Clint wasn’t in it for sex despite what the gossip mongers might've thought, hell he wasn’t even sure if Bruce could have sex. The Hawk wanted companionship, something Clint never thought he’d be capable of but damn if he didn’t long for it now after how attached he’d grown. For too long he’d been alone, and he found what interactions he’d had with the good physicist fun and different. Possibly a little one sided, then again Clint could talk for hours if given the chance and Bruce sort of listened and occasionally asked questions at the right moments. The lab was a nice change of scenery, and was more or less Bruce’s home since S.H.I.E.L.D. had roped him in and kept him on a leash. 

There was a hitch with Clint’s crazy plan to try and seduce the Doctor though in that Bruce was, despite obvious and not so obvious attempts thus far, rather un-woo-able. Maria had once said Clint could charm the pants off of anyone he damn well pleased but again it wasn’t about sex, and he hadn’t been like that after, well, a lot of things Clint didn’t want to remember. Bruce provided him a challenge that he’d never encountered before in his life. 

And who the hell was Clint Barton to back down from a challenge. He could nurse bruised pride later if he was rejected. 

Boy had he been rejected at first. 

"Things aren’t that easy, Clint,” Bruce had admonished him, palms flat against his workbench as he stared hard at Clint. “I’m not prime market material, and  _he_ won’t let me.”

“I’m not afraid of him, Bruce. Hell, he called me  _cupid_ when he saved my ass in Alaska!”

That’d been an interesting mission. Clint shook himself out of his little reprieve and leant over the other side of the desk, frown deeply set as he glared right back at Bruce. Their friendship, if Clint could even call it that, felt a little more strained for having brought it up. He avoided the lab for a few weeks after that, took on an assignment that had him on the other side of the world picking off targets to channel his anger at the rejection. It was stupid, and he reprimanded the hell out of himself for feeling like he did because he should have expected it, but it still hurt. 

By way of an apology, Clint returned to the lab after making it stateside with offerings of food and decaf coffee ( _‘Your heart can’t handle caffeine right? Mine either, makes my hands all sorts of jittery’_ ) and worked to rebuild any bridges he’d burnt. Seeking solace in the one man he could call a good friend, and that he still felt rather protective and attached to. 

It became a sort of ritual. Try again, get rejected again, angrily take it out on some mission because he couldn’t exactly handle being told  _no,_ have dinner and act like it didn't happen _._ Rinse lather repeat. The fact Bruce kept letting him back in as a friend gave him hope though, that maybe his feelings were reciprocated but Bruce was too afraid to take the plunge (or perhaps too afraid that he’d  _hurt_ Clint in some way, the archer wasn't really sure), but Clint didn't know how much longer he could keep it up. Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe not. 

“It’s been six months and you’re still trying,” Bruce brought it up conversationally as they ate in the lab late one night, after Clint came back from being knee-deep in some alien mess S.H.I.E.L.D. had been sent in to mop up. Clint almost choked. Bruce continued, undeterred. “I don’t know if I should be charmed or creeped out.”

“Charmed, I hope,” Clint replied, a little haughtily, but he was feeling a little defensive.

Bruce chuckled quietly. “It’s nice, having someone treat me like I’m not going to hulk out of them at any given moment. It’s a risk though...”

“I’m willing to take it.”

“Are you?” Bruce had set his utensils down now and was staring at Clint with intent, as if he were trying to get a good read on Clint. “This really isn’t just some sick attempt to score with me?”

“I want to get to know  _you_  better.” 

Clint awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck as he made the admission earnestly, his food suddenly looking very interesting. Bruce was leaning over a little closer, clearly curious and pleased by the answer. It was the first real direct attention Clint had gotten from the man and it made him squirm somewhat. Clint Barton, master archer and assassin, made a nervous wreck by one dark-haired scientist. Bruce cracked a smile- an honest to God smile. 

“There are a lot of ground rules,” he cooly said, and Clint set aside his food to face Bruce in full. This was it. This was a serious conversation and Bruce Banner was staring right through into Clint to gauge his sincerity. 

“Same.” 

“I don’t trust easily, you burn this bridge and that’s it,” Bruce was leaning closer still, eyes dark. 

Clint chortled, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck raise. “Two way street, Banner. I think I like you, a lot.” 

“Obviously, you’ve been trying for so long to--”

Clint closed the gap and cut off Bruce’s words with a soft kiss. 


End file.
